8 July 2013 - transcendence

8 July 2013 - transcendence

“Go away! The girl is not dead but sleeping.”
And they ridiculed him.

Our minds ridicule ideas like this too.  Secretly, unconsciously, we believe that the laws of materialism are absolute.  People don't rise from the dead.  People aren't healed.  Energy is dispersing to the four winds, never to be collected again.

Our minds are rebellious.  This world is imperfect because of sin.  We don't want to acknowledge sin.   We tend to think of this world as more of a permanent home than it really is.  We have a hard time truly living for the coming kingdom.  There is an inherent uncomfortableness in the knowledge that we live in the not yet.  We try to avoid this and make a lasting home here.  We therefore expect that everything should be perfect here and now.  And when it isn't we expect that we ourselves should be the ones to fix it.  And when we can't fix it, we assume that it is hopeless.  To preserve our comfort, we begin to ridicule the idea of a God who transcends all things.

Yet there is a place where this world of sin and suffering and the perfect world of heaven intersect as Jacob sees in his dream.

Then he had a dream: a stairway rested on the ground,
with its top reaching to the heavens;
and God’s messengers were going up and down on it.

And that place is Jesus.

And he said to him, “Amen, amen,* I say to you, you will see the sky opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man” (cf. John 1:51).

Jesus is the place where all of the brokenness of this world is made new.  We cannot accept the imperfections of this world and rightly so.  Just getting close to Jesus and touching him is enough to access the power which even now begins to heal all things.

She said to herself, “If only I can touch his cloak, I shall be cured.”
Jesus turned around and saw her, and said,
“Courage, daughter! Your faith has saved you.”
And from that hour the woman was cured.

In Jesus the things that we take for granted as laws- things which we have to experience because of sin have no power.

When the crowd was put out, he came and took her by the hand,
and the little girl arose.

So what is the secret to placing our trust more in Jesus than the expectations we have about the world from our past experiences?  Cling to him!  Let his hand raise us up!  He can stop our hopes from hemorrhaging even after years and years.  He can give us life again!

Because he clings to me, I will deliver him;
I will set him on high because he acknowledges my name.
He shall call upon me, and I will answer him;
I will be with him in distress.